33
China seems incapable of reading the room/learning from recent geopolitical events. There is no turning back once economies are decoupled and bridges are burnt. It's almost as if Xi is high on his own propaganda and forgot he has to rely on the world economy to get his fiefdom beyond the middle income trap and through the crises (demographic, environmental, economic) to come. If Europeans are willing to pay double their heating bill so not to rely on Russian gas, there's no reason not to consider alternative producers of rare earth, which are literally everywhere.